The third day of racing again failed to bring any points to Britain's America's Cup challengers in the battle for sailing's most important trophy. In the duel with New Zealand's Cup defenders, the score is 4:0 in favour of the Kiwis. After a good start, "Britannia" had to let the New Zealand "Taihoro" pass on the second of six sections of the course after a less than optimal gybe at the windward gate and a course split between the two boats.
New strategy after penalty the day before
Was it the better pressure that the Kiwis found on the stubbornly defended right-hand side of the course, or the slightly better speed that put them ahead at the next encounter? The Kiwis then defended their lead with their usual concentration and effectiveness, reaching the finish line after a race time of just under 27 minutes with a 23-second lead of around 550 metres over "Britannia".
A look at the data from this fourth race in the 37th America's Cup match did not reveal everything, but it did reveal a few things: at 42.1 knots, "Britannia" had achieved a slightly higher top speed than New Zealand's "Taihoro" (41.9 knots). However, the Kiwis' average speed of 33.8 knots was higher than that of the British (33.1 knots). The British crew, led by co-pilots Ben AInslie and Dylan Fletcher, did not quite match the speed of the New Zealand AC75 foiler either upwind or downwind.
Trimmer Bleddyn Mon explained the good but rather conservative start of "Britannia" after the race: "We were disappointed about what happened yesterday and wanted a good start today." On Sunday, "Britannia" had conceded a penalty in the pre-start phase of Race 3, which had put Ben Ainslie and his crew behind at the start of the race.
Fiercely contested Monday duel in the America's Cup
Bleddyn Mon went on to comment on Monday's hard-fought duel, in which both teams reached the first windward gate at the same time and simultaneously rounded the opposite marks: "It was a close race today. There are very, very small differences in performance that put one team ahead of the other. There is only a small step missing." Before the rest day on Tuesday, the 29er sailor, who was successful in his youth, said: "We have to keep working hard tomorrow and make sure that we are ahead on Wednesday."
Asked about the differences between the two boats and the two teams at this stage, the Welshman, who is in his second America's Cup campaign in a dual role as a sailor and member of the performance and analysis team, said: "We are seeing that the races between these two boats are close. The Kiwis are very good at getting the performance out of their boat, sailing it well and not making any mistakes. Whoever makes it to the front in these races is hard to overtake."
The hope of the challengers
Bleddyn Mon also said: "We are working tirelessly here on base and at home in the UK to find every possible profit we can make for the boat. I think we've done that very well over the last month. That's a massive strength of our team: to keep working hard and keep getting a little bit better and a little bit better. We'll keep doing that. And hopefully it will be enough."
And we can see from our own figures that we are getting better." Bleddy Mon
Asked about the Cup day off on Tuesday, Bleddyn Mon laughed and said: "It's definitely not going to be a day off for us tomorrow. This competition is intense. Everyone will make every effort tomorrow to get even more performance out of 'Britannia'. We've done that every day so far. So tomorrow will be another valuable day for us to analyse where we currently stand. Then we'll really get going on Wednesday."
The 37th America's Cup will continue on Wednesday with races 5 and 6. The America's Cup is won by the first team to achieve seven victories. With a possible score of 6:0 on Wednesday evening and a reserve day planned for Thursday, the duel between New Zealand and Great Britain could still end at the weekend and not on Friday.
America's Cup protocol could affect schedule
Regatta Director Iain Murray explained why this might be the case at a briefing in Barcelona on Monday, referring to the America's Cup protocol. In it, the defender and challenger of record - Team Ineos Britannia in this edition of the Cup - agreed that the final would not finish before the second weekend.
REPLAY! The fourth race in the duel for the America's Cup:
